


Hey Little Songbird

by overratedantihero



Series: Strange is the Call of This Strange Man [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Established Relationship, Excessive Use of Pomegranate Imagery, Grocery Shopping, Hades and Persephone Analogy, M/M, Shameless Greek Mythology References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overratedantihero/pseuds/overratedantihero
Summary: Dick is a little too comfortable with his descent, but then again, he knows he'll always return topside.Or, Dick goes grocery shopping and Slade helps him expand his palette.





	Hey Little Songbird

“Kid, you ever had a pomegranate?” Slade asked, tossing a rotund fruit in his hand. Dick scrunched his nose before he continued to pluck honey crisp apples from their stand and plop them into a thin plastic bag. Clark had recommended them, after hearing Bruce and Dick argue over Dick’s nutrition deficient diet. He’d said they tasted good with cereal, and Dick had a feeling Clark meant that granola cereal he ate, not Dick’s preferred mixture of frosted flakes and cinnamon crunch, but nevertheless, Clark had been right.

“Probably,” Dick said to Slade. “Alfred’s probably made me something with pomegranate.” He tied off his bag of apples and gripped the grocery cart, ready to transition from the produce aisle to the alcohol section.

That’s why he and Slade had come to the store to begin with- well, originally just Dick. Dick had gotten home to his apartment after a long day at the community center and found it devoid of food and beer. He was even out of the red wine Bruce had left last time he visited. But when he’d opened the door of his apartment to leave, Slade was there and so Dick just packed Slade along like he was Dick’s keys and wallet and headed out anyway.

“Not good enough. Buy a few of these,” Slade demanded, placing three in the cart. Dick huffed and picked one up.

“Looks expensive. And inedible,” Dick muttered. Slade chuckled, a quiet, chuffing sound.

“Says the brat with a Wayne platinum and the palette of child. You don’t eat the peel, pretty boy. It’s the seeds inside.” Slade picked up a cup of pomegranate arils from a refrigerated shelf to show Dick. Dick reached for the cup, but Slade pulled it out of his reach. “Nope. You want the whole experience. Buy the whole pomegranate, kid.”

Dick wanted to argue that he didn’t want pomegranate at all, but instead he just sighed and kept one in his cart, replacing the other two. “One,” he insisted.

“One,” Slade conceded, smiling so that his white teeth flashed. Dick suppressed the shudder.

As they took to walking again, languidly strolling towards the aisles lined with liquor and beer, Dick began, “When I was little-”

“But aren’t you still?” Slade offered. Dick shot him a sharp glare and Slade laughed.

“When I was _actually_ little, like, nine or ten, Diana used to read me these stories from classical myths. Bruce encouraged it, I think he hoped it would pique me to more academic pursuits.”

“Never pinned the Bat for an optimist,” Slade offered. Dick whipped his head around to make sure no one had overhead the casual unmasking before throwing his hands up.

“Merc without a mouth _my ass_ ,” Dick huffed.

“Please,” Slade shot back, leaning on the cart so that he had the cart pinned in place. Dick released the handle and crossed his arms. “It’s not as if you’re being inconspicuous.”

That offended Dick. They _were_ being inconspicuous.  Dick was in a hoodie, Gotham Knights baseball cap, and sunglasses. Perhaps strange elsewhere, but this was Gotham. Sunglasses indoors was the least of the public’s worries. And even Big Bad Deathstroke was dressed in gray slacks and a black button-up. His hair was long, he’d been growing it out, but it was pulled back in a neat ponytail. To any passerby, they were an average duo, maybe even a father and son.

Dick stuck his tongue out and scrunched his face. He didn’t want to dwell on that image. Slade quirked and eyebrow, but Dick shook his head.

“Am not.” Dick didn’t want to explain himself further. He glanced over the various beers, hesitating only slightly before pulling out a six-pack of his preferred IPA. It was his turn to raise his eyebrows as he gestured towards the lines of beer and blinked at Slade in offering. Slade shook his head before tilting it in the other direction, towards the whiskey and liqueurs. Dick followed him with the cart and Slade sauntered down the aisle and plucked a pricey whiskey from the shelf.

“Bruce’ll know that whiskey’s not mine,” Dick warned, “if he sees it in my apartment.”

“He already knows,” Slade reminded him as they moved along, predictably towards the cereal. “He’s a detective. My fingerprints are all over you.”

As Slade spoke, Dick recognized a member of the more unsavory press from his peripheral. Before he could hunker down or even lean into the journalist’s presence with a charming smile, Slade had already slung an arm around his shoulders and pressed his lips against Dick’s temple. Dick relaxed into the embrace on reflex, but then he saw the flash of the pressman’s smartphone and he groaned. Slade chuckled against his skin.

“What did I say, kiddo?” Slade murmured into Dick’s ear. Dick, for a second time, suppressed a shudder. “This town would recognize that ass from a mile away. Some birds sing too sweetly.”

Dick was not as into literature as Jason or Tim (or even Damian), but he knew the line, and he recited it obediently: “So, you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.’

“Is that why you only let me descend oh so low?” Dick murmured. The journalist had taken his eyes off of them to tweet his prize, and Dick took his distraction as an opportunity to pull away from Slade only to press a kiss against his cheekbone, just under his eyepatch. Slade snorted.

“I don’t _let_ you do anything. I recognize that I can only have you for so long, in so many contexts, and I take advantage of your momentary freedom with the knowledge that you’ll always return to perch in the shadow of the Bat.”

Dick hummed and then turned away completed to pluck an obscenely large box of an obscenely sugary cereal from the shelf, tossing it carelessly into the cart. He also collected several energy and protein bars from the aisle before striding the cart towards the next aisle, where Slade knew he’d hoard enough boxed macaroni and cheese to make a child balk.

“I never finished my story,” Dick said, as he dropped the fourth box of mac ‘n’ cheese into the cart. Slade, who had turned away for culpable deniability, glanced over his shoulder.

“Story?”

“About Diana reading me Greek myths,” Dick clarified, adding two more boxes before leaving the aisle. When Slade didn’t interrupt, Dick continued, “My favorite stories were always about Jason or Achilles. I never could forgive Heracles. I cried over Psyche.”

“Unsurprising,” Slade murmured. Of course the kid would enjoy stories of heroism and quests. Of course he would struggle with a man who murdered his family, no matter how crazed he may have been. Even the Red Hood, drunk on bitter hurt and the lingering effects of the Lazarus pit, always stopped short of killing any member of the family. But Slade wasn’t sure why Dick would tell him any of this.

“But if you’d ask me who I resonated with the most,” Dick said, answering Slade’s silent question, “it would be Persephone.”

Slade waited for more, but that was all Dick had to say. They managed to check out with relative ease, even as passerby began to check their Twitter feeds and then whip around wildly in search of Dick’s sunglassed face. Slade did his part to stand behind Dick, shielding him from the bulk of it, but by the time they were passing through the automatic doors, it was with haste as a crowd began to gather.

“Bruce is definitely going to know,” Dick groaned as he slid into the passenger seat of his car. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t driving, or how Slade had gotten his keys, but he wasn’t too bothered. This way he could slump into the seat and pull his hoodie over his head. He tugged at the strings.

“This isn’t like our little exhibitionist,” Slade mused. “I had thought I’d have to drag you away from the crowd, not fend it off.”

“It’s not spring,” Dick said. It was May, but Slade understood anyhow. They drove in relative silence, until Slade had parked and they were heaving groceries up the stairs to Dick’s apartment.

“I can take some of those bags,” Slade offered, carrying his load with ease. Dick looked a bit more weighed down. Still, Dick shook his head and persisted until he wrestled his front door open and dumped his bags on the ground. Slade closed his eye and counted to ten. When he opened them, Dick was holding the pomegranate. Then, obviously not realizing Slade was watching, Dick licked it and made a face.

 “ _Kid_ ,” Slade sighed, “Kid, what are you doing?”

Dick looked sheepish and began to disperse the groceries into cabinets and his refrigerator in lieu of answering. Once everything was put away, Slade held out his hand and Dick hesitated before placing the pomegranate firmly in Slade’s palm. Slade searched through drawers and on the counters but he was unable to find a knife sharp enough or sturdy enough to cut the fruit.

“God, really?” Dick whined when Slade pulled a tanto knife from his pocket. Which was apparently not a pocket, but a sheath. Dick knew his slacks were too loose fitting.

Slade placed the pomegranate on a cutting board (“You have a cutting board and not a single good kitchen knife?” “It was a gift from Alfred. I’ll ask for knives for Christmas.”) Then, swiftly, violently, harshly, Slade stabbed the pomegranate with the tanto, such that the point of the tanto split the cutting board as it slid through the fruit’s tough peel. Wine-dark pomegranate juice spurted like blood from a cut artery and Dick whined.

“Was that really necessary?”

Slade shrugged. “This is a stabbing knife, not a slicing knife. I had to puncture it enough to rip it the rest of the way open. Unless you want to do the honors.” Slade dislodged the knife and placed it on the counter. He stepped back, inviting Dick to step forward. Dick hesitated, but then he approached the pomegranate and fit his thumbs into the puncture and pulled. It took more effort than he anticipated, but the fruit finally gave way with a pleasing crack, gushing more juice from the seeds that had burst. It was sticky and red and it dripped from Dick’s hands.

Dick didn’t even realize he was staring at the goriness of it all (garnet juice seeped from glinting tear-drop seeds, staining the counter, the cutting board, the pale inner-flesh) until Slade took his wrist and brought it to his mouth, to lick a trail of juice that was drying there. It left a pink stain.  

“Messy,” Dick said.

“Might as well try a few seeds,” Slade said, plucking a few from where they were embedded. Dick obediently opened his mouth and Slade placed them on his tongue. Dick chewed thoughtfully.

“Sour,” he said. Slade dug some more seeds from the fruit and Dick opened his mouth for those too, but this time he slid them under his tongue so that he could lick the juice from Slade’s fingers.

“Less sour,” he said and Slade chuckled as he removed his fingers and took a few seeds for himself.

“So, little bird. Pomegranates?” Slade asked, chewing slowly on the seeds, splitting a half of the pomegranate into two quarters, one of which he kept and one he offered to Dick. Dick took, further staining his hands as he pried the seeds out, one by one.

After a moment’s silence, Dick murmured, “I can see the appeal. They’re tasty. It’s a lot of work though. And my counters are cheap plastic, I just spent my security deposit on those stains.”

“I’ll buy you a new countertop. And a new cutting board. I’d buy you a new apartment, or you can bite the bullet and summer in Tanzania with me. You’d like Tanzania. There are elephants,” as Slade spoke, he leaned closer and Dick laughed, a pretty, bubbling laugh.

Dick wrapped his arms around Slade’s neck and Slade reached under Dick to lift him up and place him on the counter. Dick darted forward and nipped Slade’s lower lip, tasting pomegranate. “Sounds sunny. Sounds like I’ll have to watch you, keep you from any coups or diamond trades.”

“If that’s what you need to tell the Bat to slip away, by all means,” Slade cooed. “I like playing villain.”

“Bruce and the others will always pull me back,” Dick warned, “But,” and his voice warmed as he wiggled closer, wrapping his legs around Slade’s waist, “I don’t mind descending every once in a while. If only for a summer or so.”  

Slade grinned, showing off red stained teeth, before dipping down and throwing Dick over his shoulder as if Dick weighed the same as a feather. Dick let out a surprised yelp and fisted Slade’s untucked shirt.

“I counted fifteen,” Slade said.

Dick paused his wriggling long enough to splutter, “What?”

“You said you’d descend for a summer. By my count, you ate fifteen pomegranate seeds. That’s fifteen months. We’ll spend winter in Pakistan, find a snow leopard.”

Dick laughed, the warmth of it traveling through Slade as he let the kid down so he was holding Dick up in his arms while Dick had his legs wrapped around Slade’s waist, his face still flushed from being upside down, grinning crookedly.

“A summer,” he insisted. “The last thing we need is Bruce negotiating my return.”

“And next year?” Slade asked. Dick chewed his lip, and it made Slade want to run a thumb across his lip. But he restrained himself and kept himself a pillar, one which would gladly hold Dick for as long as the brightly feathered bird would let him.

“Guess you’ll have to bring me a pomegranate, and see if I’ll eat the seeds.”


End file.
